Generational Patterns of Digital News Consumption

PurposeThe modern high-choice news environment has changed the way people consume news. We examined the structure of news repertories, the role of news trust (and cynicism) in shaping news repertoires, and the effects of different news repertoires on political participation in the South Korean news environment, where news portals function as major news sources.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted a two-wave national survey of adults in January and February 2022 with a three-week time interval. Latent profile analyses and latent profile regression were employed.FindingsFour major news repertoires were identified: news portal-concentrated, portal and TV combination, all except print and SNS, and platform omnivores. Trust in mainstream news media was found to be high in the following order: platform omnivores, all except print and SNS, portal and TV combination, and portal-concentrated repertoires. Cynicism about mainstream media was found to be higher among the users of portal-concentrated repertoire than those using the other three repertoires. Those who rely mainly on news portals for news (i.e. portal-concentrated) were less likely to participate in politics.Originality/valueThis study provides comprehensive insights into how audience perceptions of trust and cynicism toward mainstream news media shape news consumption patterns in today’s high-choice media environment. In particular, the findings of this study illuminate the function of news portals as a substitute platform for those who exhibit lower trust and higher cynicism toward mainstream news media.

Technological advances in the field of communication is leading to new forms of consumption of news and information. Consumption of news on smartphones is relatively a new phenomenon in today's media landscape. Today, almost every media organization has its own smartphone application to distribute news content to readers. But the rice of news aggregators and their smartphone applications has created a new dimension of news consumption on the portable device. Applications that aggregate news, such as Google News, Dailyhunt, Inshorts, Opera News etc., offer users personalized and up-to-date news from reputed sources. News consumers are turning to news aggregator apps as they provide news from multiple sources on a single platform. Despite the popularity of news aggregator applications in India. The present study tries to find out the impact of news aggregator applications on news consumers and the patterns of news consumption in these applications. Mangalore City of Karnataka state was selected to study the problem. The primary data collected from 220 respondents randomly through structured questionnaire.

This research study examines the impact of the post-truth era—where emotional responses, personal beliefs, and subjective interpretations are more influential than objective facts—on Generation Z's news consumption patterns, particularly in the context of social media. The objective of this study is to examine and assess Generation Z's news consumption patterns in the context of the social media platform Instagram. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observational studies, and a comprehensive review of relevant literature. The purposive selection of respondents included individuals from Generation Z who actively use Instagram, with a minimum age of 17.The study's findings suggest that Generation Z's news consumption habits are influenced by the prevalence of easily accessible social media platforms, as well as trends and influencers in this space. While respondents demonstrated an understanding of the potential risks associated with fake news, they frequently encountered challenges in verifying the reliability of the content they encountered. This underscores the necessity for strategies aimed at promoting news literacy. The study found that trust in news sources was influenced by the reputation of the media outlet, the visual appeal of the content, and the opinions of their social networks. The study's findings underscore the pervasive influence of prevailing trends, prominent influencers, and the ease of access to information, particularly through social media platforms, on Generation Z's news consumption patterns. While respondents acknowledged the dangers associated with fake news, their inclination to verify information remains a significant challenge.

Research on news exposure has shown that while political knowledge and interest largely determine the degree of active engagement with online news, some people are generally less willing to invest into actively staying informed. Instead, these people report to pursue a passive mode of relying on specific sources, such as social media, based on the belief that “news finds me” (NFM). Notably, the three dimensions of NFM—feeling informed, relying on peers, and not actively seeking news—combine intentions and perceptions related to news use. Understanding NFM perceptions, hence, requires an analytical distinction between active and passive modes of news use as well as reliable measures of (different types of) news exposure. We contribute to this field by combining a survey, tracked web-browsing data, and tracked Facebook data to investigate the relationship between NFM perceptions and exposure to online news, also taking into account political knowledge and interest as traditional predictors of active news use. Our results show that both political knowledge and interest are associated with more news exposure via web browsers and that political knowledge—but not political interest—is also associated with more news in people’s Facebook feeds. Compared with the NFM dimensions, political knowledge and interest are stronger predictors of online news exposure in our study. Taken together, the novel combination of Facebook and web tracking data provides evidence that online news exposure is shaped by a confluence of traditional factors and more diffuse interpersonal processes.

Purpose Gen Z or younger news audiences are believed to contribute to declining news consumption as a result of decreased news interest and reduced trust, particularly in political news. It can have adverse consequences for democratic processes. This study offers a more nuanced perspective by qualifying the role of context, and generational differences and similarities in online political news consumption patterns before and after the 2020 US presidential election, which witnessed a series of unprecedented events in the country’s history. Design/methodology/approach To investigate these patterns, I use US aggregated website visitation data from Comscore in a quasi-experimental interrupted time series design, leveraging the 2020 election as a natural experimental condition. Findings While Gen Z are indeed consuming considerably less news, contrary to assumptions, there was significantly increased engagement with news websites following the election. Additionally, media audiences across generations are likely to reduce social media use during such events. Implications Major political events can significantly influence media use patterns such as the extent of news consumption in general and political news in particular, something not often considered in media effects-oriented research. There is also an urgent need to review and reassess our definitions of news, news sources, and its audience. Originality/value By using observational data in a quasi-experimental design, this study offers a more precise and refined perspective of generational patterns of online political news consumption in the context of a major political event that both corroborates as well as challenges some our existing notions of media use.

Since the emergence of the Internet, news organizations have been at crossroads. Print operations based on high advertisement rates and a robust subscription model allow media companies to bolster news workers and revenue streams. Contrarily, in online media, advertisement incomes have reduced. Interestingly, while readers’ consumption patterns privilege online news, several studies empirically show that most citizens are reluctant to pay for news services, supporting the culture of free mindset. However, many news organizations implemented paywalls as a response to the general failure of free business models. With this backdrop, do citizens who pay for news, through their news repertoires, have more, less, or similar knowledge about public affairs and politics? More importantly, do paywalls engender news information inequalities among citizens who do not intend to pay for news? This chapter problematizes the presumed effects of paywalls on citizens’ knowledge about public affairs and politics.KeywordsDemocracyOnline journalismPaywallsThe culture of free

News media act as a window to the world. This window is now believed to be shrinking due to developments in digital media such as algorithmic personalization which restricts people to echo chambers in turn affecting citizens’ views on society. It is an example of the moral panics surrounding digital media and obfuscating underlying social dynamics at play. This article seeks to address this issue by looking at news use through the lens of news repertoires. Building on a representative survey of Dutch-speaking Belgian citizens, we identify four archetypical news repertoires (Limited – Panoramic – Traditional – Casual) and investigate how these relate to civic attitudes including civic (dis-) engagement, individualism, and ethnocentrism. In line with previous research, our study shows that age and socio-economic status significantly predict the constellation of one’s news repertoire. Furthermore, variances in news repertoires translate into small but significant differences in views on society, particularly between the media-rich Panoramic and media-poor Limited news repertoires regarding ethnocentrism. Finally, we discuss how in order to appease moral media panics, it is not only necessary to substantiate debates on media power with empirical insights on news use, but also to imagine news audiences in a more nuanced way.

In recent years, links between selective news exposure and political polarisation have attracted considerable attention among communication scholars. However, while the existence of selective exposure has been documented in both offline and online environments, the evidence of its extent and its impact on political polarisation is far from unanimous. To address these questions, and also to bridge methodological and geographical gaps in existing research, this paper adopts a media repertoires approach to investigate selective news exposure and polarisation in four Eastern European countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Serbia. Using a combination of population surveys, expert surveys and qualitative interviews, the data for the study were collected between November 2019 and May 2020. We identify five types of news repertoires based on their relative openness to counter-attitudinal sources, and show that selective news repertoires are present in 29% of the entire sample. Our findings also reveal significant cross-country differences, with the more selective news repertoires more prominent in countries characterised by higher levels of polarisation. Furthermore, while the selection of news sources is in line with people's electoral (and to a lesser extent ideological) preferences, our findings show that exposure to counter-attitudinal sources can also be strongly correlated with political and ideological leanings. Our qualitative data suggest that this is because exposure to counter-attitudinal sources can reinforce attitudes, and potentially contribute to polarisation. Qualitative data also highlight the influence of environmental factors (e.g., family), and suggest that selective news consumption is associated with normatively different conceptions of media trust.

While democratic opinion formation relies on citizens receiving vital information from the news, an increasing number of people consistently consume very little of it. To address this concern, we tracked the mobile news consumption of 382 young adults in Switzerland and combined it with survey data of the participants to determine the effect of topical interests, political attitudes, and media consumption habits on news usage. We found that interest in domestic politics was a strong predictor of news consumption. Additional predictors within our 18–25-year-old participant group were age and time spent online. These findings have implications for policymakers; fostering an informed citizenry may be more effective when targeting the underlying interest in politics rather than directly attempting to boost news use.

This study examines audience relationships to fact-checking sites in the United States. Focus is placed on predictors of audience awareness of, attitudes toward, and visits to such sites within a stage model framework drawn from the persuasive message literature. Analysis of survey data from a U.S. sample shows that liberals and liberal/mainstream news consumers are more aware of, positive toward, and likely to report using fact-checking sites. Conservatives are less positive and conservative news consumers see such sites as less useful to them. Findings indicate that while specific combinations of predictors of awareness, attitudes, and behavior vary, fact-checking sites have a particular appeal to liberals and liberal/mainstream news consumers. Results point to U.S. fact-checking sites being absorbed into wider ideological discourses and patterns of ideological news consumption.

This study explores the relationships between political orientation and news consumption, examining the mediating role of trust in media and the moderating role of interest in politics. Based on a survey of 9,558 audience members from Chile, our work reveals three key findings. First, political orientation is directly connected to individuals choosing to consume news from media outlets that align with their ideological beliefs, demonstrating a clear pattern of selective exposure. Second, trust in these media brands acts as a crucial mediator of this relationship, with individuals more likely to engage with news from sources they trust, often aligning with their political views. Third, political interest moderates all these links, with higher political interest intensifying selective exposure to like-minded media. These results enhance our understanding of confirmation bias in media consumption and underscore the intertwined roles of ideological preferences and perceived credibility. The findings have significant implications for media practices and policies to reduce political polarization and promote more diversified news consumption. Future research should consider experimental or longitudinal designs to further investigate these dynamics and explore interventions encouraging exposure to a broader range of viewpoints.

ABSTRACTThe distinction between legacy media and digital media has frequently been used to analyze the journalistic and commercial contrast between traditional media (offline) and new media (online). However, little research has been carried out on the degree to which legacy brands differ from digital native brands in the digital environment. Are legacy and digital native news brands associated with similar news consumption patterns, or do those patterns differ substantially? This work intends to give an answer to this question, taking as a reference the Spanish case. The underlying assumption of this study is the idea that legacy brands carry over into the digital world some of the consumption characteristics of their old products, which could differ greatly from those associated with new digital native products. While not in the manner initially planned, the study confirms the existence of small differences in those characteristics between groups of brands, but mostly related to journalistic factors, not marketing ones. These findings have important consequences for the branding of legacy and native news brands.

This study examines how social media algorithms influence news consumption patterns and perceptions of bias within the Indian digital context, marked by mobile-first access, high social media penetration, and widespread reliance on messaging apps. As news consumption has shifted from editorially gatekept legacy media to algorithmically curated platforms, concerns surrounding echo chambers, misinformation, and algorithmic bias have intensified. The study investigates the relationship between public perceptions of social media algorithms and their perceived impact on news consumption, echo chambers, and the spread of biased content, testing the hypothesis that algorithms significantly shape news habits and introduce bias. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional design, data were collected through a structured questionnaire from a stratified sample of 406 media professionals and general news consumers in urban India. Four constructs were measured: algorithmic prioritization, echo chambers, personalized consumption, and biased news spread. Bayesian correlation analysis using posterior means and 95% Highest Density Credible Intervals revealed a statistically credible positive relationship between perceived algorithmic prioritization and echo chambers (Posterior Mean=0.151, 95% CI [0.055, 0.244]) and a stronger relationship between personalized consumption and perceived biased news spread (Posterior Mean=0.219, 95% CI [0.127, 0.309]). Other hypothesized relationships were not credible. The findings partially support the hypothesis, indicating that while algorithms shape the structural information environment and bias exposure, individual news choice continues to reflect user agency.

This study investigates the impact of fake news on the credibility of national Hindi news channels, focusing on viewer perceptions in Uttarakhand. As misinformation proliferates across media platforms, understanding its effects on audience trust and news consumption habits is crucial for maintaining an informed citizenry and a healthy media ecosystem.The research uses a survey methodology to examine viewers' news consumption patterns, awareness and perception of fake news and the subsequent impact on channel credibility. Questions explore viewing frequency, preferred channels and perceived exposure to misinformation. The study assesses viewers' confidence in identifying fake news and investigates which news categories are most susceptible to false information.Central to this investigation is how fake news affects trust in Hindi news channels. The survey measures changes in viewer trust levels and explores factors influencing news credibility judgments. It also examines whether fake news concerns have led viewers to abandon specific channels, providing insight into potential economic impacts on news organizations.The study also explores viewers' perspectives on combating fake news, assessing the perceived importance of verifying news across multiple sources, interest in media literacy programs, and attitudes towards stricter regulations for news channels. By analyzing these aspects, the research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the fake news phenomenon in Hindi-language television news. The findings will offer valuable insights for news organizations, policymakers, and media literacy advocates, potentially informing strategies to enhance news credibility, combat misinformation, and restore viewer trust in an era of information overload and increasing media scepticism.

Although, many researches have described the younger generation to be diverse and active in politics of today, this segment of the population has not been well-acknowledged in the decision-making of politics. This involvement in politics is crucial as it helps in building confidence and skill acquirement that are relevant such as teamwork and effective communication. Hence, the study aims to further investigate their participation in politics and to construct a structural model that displays the associations between perceived information quality (PIQ), online political participation (OPP), political interest (PI), political knowledge (PK) and social media usage (SMU) among Malaysia’s youth. In doing this, the study identified various youth groups in Malaysia and from there, 476 respondents aged between 18 and 35 years responded to the online questionnaire survey. The path analysis of the structural model indicates positive significant statistical relationship between PIQ, PI with PK and OPP. The SMU also reveals a significant relation with PK but indicates no association with OPP. Nevertheless, PK has a significant relationship with OPP. This explains the importance of PIQ, PI and PK among the youth and the findings could enhance their OPP, especially in utilizing Facebook as tool for political involvement.